Free school meals

[Blackteadrinker77]

AIBU to be disgusted that our government has voted to effectively take 1 million children's free school meals away?

www.theguardian.com/voluntary-sector-network/2018/mar/13/one-million-children-hungry-new-plans-free-school-meals

Relative poverty is defined as below 60% of median household income. Of course relative poverty should be about how your income compares to others around you - how else would it be measured?

You’re not really poor unless you wear rags, stare at the walls for entertainment and eat Tesco value beans every day.

Honestly this policing of who is poor is the definition of race to the bottom. It’s frustrating to watch.

But the trouble is, Cuckwho, that if you make a benefit means-tested, then not everyone - far from everyone - who is entitled to it will apply for it or even know that they are eligible, or that the benefit exists. So then you get old people dying of hypothermia because they can't afford to put both bars of the heater on.

Obviously you chose your words with care to make it so that only a heathen has room to disagree, but here I am, disagreeing.

If an adult chooses not to accept a means-tested benefit, that's their decision. No reasonable person could judge that giving it to everyone, including the wealthy, so as to target these stubbornly proud few, makes any sense.

As for means testing being too expensive - well, this is an indictment of the bureaucrats whose very existence depends on mystifying the system. Viva la revolution.

I take it from your posts that you are relying on tax payers to fund your life choices? DH pays 40% in tax and we don't have children. If you are relying on others to pay for you, you should be a bit less vitriolic about it.

What does that have to do with the thread about free school meals?

I don't see what your husbands tax bracket has to do with it either.

Our politicians have decided to remove the right to free school meals from future claimants. That is unfair.

You will get people on the same low incomes getting it and not getting it.

Can anyone tell me how this works out with the areas which haven't switched over yet? Will they not get free school meals based on a sort of post code lottery?

4Funnels if DH could get a better job, he would. If I could afford to work, I would.

I don't see what your husbands tax bracket has to do with it either.

She thinks because she’s married to a wealthy man the rest of us should be greatful and revere her opinion, clearly.

I’ve never agreed with universal free school meals for ks1. We are fortunate to have a good income (just under 40k) and can afford comfortably to pay for school dinners, but dd still gets a free one. A few years ago when dd1 was in reception- before universal free school meals, dh was out of work and my income was quite small, but we didn’t qualify for fsm becasue we were over the threshold. It was really hard going.

Raise the income level for everyone rather than giving them free to the well off. I think exactly the same about funded childcare places. Those earning 99k get a funded place for their 3 year old but the mother with a 1 year old who earns minimum wage gets very little childcare help.

Unfortunately there always has to be a cut off point and it is more difficult to take something away from those who already have it, then to prevent new claimants. At the other end of the spectrum, when Labour introduced Child Trust Funds, you received one if you were born on or after 1 September 2002 and nothing if you were older. This meant that younger siblings received something and older ones didn't.

You’re not really poor unless you wear rags, stare at the walls for entertainment and eat Tesco value beans every day.

The nonsense people come out with on this thread is astonishing. It seems that common sense is waking up in the real world, which is why things are changing.

she’s married to a wealthy man Certainly don't feel wealthy as mortgage is big. Just had a home-made packed lunch to save money.

katherineMinola The argument that paying everyone is cheaper is tempting but I don't think it actually works. The bigger the scheme the more it costs to administer even with simplification. This is £1bn a year extra spending that is being talked about. This benefit organised through UC. I don't receive UC there would be a cost to set me up. Those entitled are already in the system and should therefore be better directed towards their benefits than previously when there were several systems. It can't be right that someone on minimum wage is taxed so that a child going to Eton who's parents a very wealthy can get a free school. What about if that child's parents are not from the UK are they still entitled? If they later move to the UK do they then become entitled? What if someone from the UK sends their child to a school abroad are they entitled? What if a school currently only has the capacity to feed the number of children that it does now? If I thought universal was genuinely cheaper overall I'd agree with it but it isn’t.

SanFranBear how many families do you know with two kids and an income of £30,000 who are struggling to provide their children with a hot meal every day. Seriously? You are right in general about need for FSM for the most vulnerable, but the people losing out with this new legislation are not all people who are desperately struggling to feed their kids. Some of us know we are very fortunate and that the money would be better spent on those genuinely in need.

los - I know of only one on a personal level where there are addiction issues and other things take priority. The children are receiving support from SS to turn things round but school is a real lifeline to those children. As a whole though, our school has a number of these families.

I see extremes at our school admittedly but you never know what goes on behind closed doors and I would imagine there are far more of these type of families than those of us lucky enough to be able to provide decent food and a supportive learning environment for our children could ever imagine.

If an adult chooses not to accept a means-tested benefit, that's their decision. No reasonable person could judge that giving it to everyone, including the wealthy, so as to target these stubbornly proud few, makes any sense.

Road, it's often people with dementia or failing eyesight or learning difficulties or people who aren't computer literate or who can't easily get to a CAB or other advice service - as well as those people born in 1920 or so who might have a different understanding of the welfare state (they're dying off now, but have historically been a hard-to-reach group).

I've worked in a related policy field and the sums really do add up - even though it sounds crazy, it's often cheaper to make a benefit universal than to target it accurately. (By 'accurately' I mean making sure everything is available in multiple languages, large print and other formats, making sure advice services are briefed and extra resources directed to outreach yada yada.)

Same to Cuckwho - I don't know the specific sums for FSM but I would imagine that the LibDems' policy decision was made after similar costings.

**Storm in a tea cup. Fuelled by ignorance.

The cut off is a family income between 18,000 and 24,000 per year.

And utterly acceptable income to be able to afford to pay for your children’s lunches.**

Not if you live in a London Blinky and your rent is 12k a year. Could you really pay all bills, transport to work feed and clothe your children on the remaining £115 a week.
That's what an 18k income leave you.

Not even that as that is the gross figure not the net.